The interior design of the small loft apartment strives not only to accomplish the owner’s functional requirements, but also to reach a spatial experience perceivable with all our senses by means of material, colors, and shape combinations.

This loft conversion is located in the Bubeneč Prague district in a corner apartment house built in the thirties. The attic is northeast oriented,facing the street. Originally, it was used for drying laundry. The basic disposition concept reacts to the configuration of the surrounding urban environment. The “social” quarters utilize a view of the Stromovkapark and a ZOO in Troja, the bedroom part is placed in front of a high-grown lime-tree. The tree obstructs a view from the opposite buildings and helps cool the interior in the summer.

The concept arises from two contradictory requirements; an effort towards the most effective usage of limited floor space, and at the same time, the creation of a clear,generous space. The loft apartment is therefore conceived as a duplex apartment; the kitchen – living room is two-storey and offers a view into the roof construction. The quiescent part of the disposition (bedroom, bathroom and toilette) is spanned with an open gallery containing a study.

If need should arise the study can be used as a guest-room. In the future, the gallery will function as the parents’ bedroom and the present bedroom will be changed into a children’s room. The gallery is accessed via staircase and a steel footbridge, creating an intimate “promenade architecturale“, thus enabling perception of the elevated living-room space and the gallery space from different perspective.

The goal of the design was to create a clean interior without decorative overkills. Every centimeter of space is used as storage space. The staircase to the gallery also functions as a kitchen unit, a gas boiler and a bookcase are placed into the niches between chimneys. Bathroom cabinet harbors a washing machine and a drier. Space above the toilet holds cleaners and closet literature. Inbuilt wardrobes form an entire bedroom wall as well as a gallery wall. An electric switchboard is part of the inbuilt furniture. On the gallery, two working tables are placed into the space between windows, offering a view of the roofs of the opposite houses.

The interior material solution creates a dialogue between rough surface of the original brick chimney walls and the clean contours of plasterboard constructions. Mass of the sanitary space is clearly distinguished by gray plaster inviting to be touched. Floors and solitaire furniture are oak; the inbuilt furniture is white varnished. The kitchen was designed with great care. Even though it is small, it offers all the necessary surfaces and spaces. Kitchen cabinet doors are made of oak veneer, the worktop is patinous granite neroassoluto, appliances and holds are stainless-steel.The rare-facing panel of the kitchen is lined with glass of the same tincture as the upper cabinets.

Words from the architect

The customer wanted a two-bedroom pied-a-terre that would function as a gallery for a private art collection and library. The library is housed in a ten-foot-high 40-foot-long curved walnut bookcase that contains display vitrines. The artwork is dispersed throughout the apartment, which also contains a Japanese tea room and an outside terrace.

The project purpose was to create spaces that reflected various aspects of the clients collection of arts and books. By creating various spaces that reference and display the art collection, the clients personal interests are integrated into his living space.

Walnut cabinets were used throughout for display. Floors are of a quarter sawn maple. Full height glass panels divide spaces and the tearoom light fixture is made of a single enormous piece of origami.

Entering the loft one is in a tall gallery space that opens into the main space of the loft. Directly across this open space is a full height glass wall leading out to a large terrace looking North and East, which admits abundant light into the loft. Facing the terrace is a thirty-foot long curving walnut bookcase, which has been designed with integral lighted vitrines for the display of rare books or art objects. Other vitrines complete the perimeter of the main space. The space opens towards the East onto a tatami mat area. The master bedroom suite is adjacent to the tatami mat room and is designed to flow spatially into a luxurious master bathroom.

The program specified a library and private office suite, living space, formal dining space, kitchen/dining/family room, exercise space and spa, master bedroom suite, three guest bedroom suites, a sculpture terrace and gallery. The entry floor is organized around a modulating circulation/gallery space separating the double-height living volumes, with their views, from the service spaces and building cores. The entry gallery, accessed from the north elevator lobby adjacent to the two-bedroom guest pavilion, opens to the sculpture terrace and extends the circulation procession to the family spaces which are revealed sequentially.

The second level, accessed by two stairs, one from the living and the other from the family room, accommodates the master bedroom suite, with its balcony terrace overlooking the city and river, and a guest bedroom suite, with a balcony sitting area over the library. The counterpoint between wall and glass, solid and void, establishes a dynamic and hierarchal layering of space which is simultaneously enriched and reinforced by the integration of the art collection into the architecture.